53 Yeah, I’m a backline fighter, is there a problem?

In the darkest hour of the night, Astur and her team begin to close in on St Heleste Cathedral as they go over their plan, or perhaps lack thereof.

"This feels… too simple. Is this really going to work?" Kretea asks.

"I agree on its simplicity, but it's definitely in line with the way Astur does things," Elizabeth says while shaking her head.

"What's the point of overly complicated plans when we can just walk right in. Thanks to those Irregulars we found out there is only a single path that leads underground that is also being watched by guards. The chance of this being the path to the crypt is high. Moreover, it's not far from the cathedral's front entrance, which saves us quite a bit of trouble. First, we have some people cause a commotion on the opposite side of the cathedral. Then once the member of the Church come to check it out we rush the other side where we are and make a dash for the crypt. Afterwards, we break down the crypt's entrance and enter. Finally, we do what we came to and get the fuck out. A simple plan without any complicated processes involved," Astur explains.

Without wasting any time, Astur sends the dozen Warband members off with a few Blast Balls as they move into position for arguably the easiest part of the plan. They only have to make some noise and run. Not even a minute later, the sound of an explosion can be heard coming from the other end of the cathedral and just a few seconds later another explosion can be heard, then soon followed by another. Although the blast can't be compared to Astur using a Big Blast Ball, the Blast Balls being used by the Warband were still made by her which increases their potency by a decent amount. If one listens closely, the sound of hurried footsteps can be heard, quickly becoming fainter as they approach the source of the explosions.

"Tch," Astur tosses her special blunt to the side in annoyance before she says, "It's time."

At Astur's command, she, Elizabeth, and Kretea storm the front entrance and quickly make their way towards the suspected path to the crypt beneath the cathedral. The moment the group passes over the threshold of the entrance, the sound of an alarm can be heard, but the group ignores it as they come up to the four guards guarding the suspected path to the crypt. Two mages, a swordsman, and a spearman. As the two sides meet, the guards, Elizabeth, and Kretea take a second to look over their opponents, but Astur ignores all proper combat procedures and rushes straight at the four guards.

Having been trained to deal with all kinds of situations, the guards don't take more than a millisecond to react as a spear gets thrust into Astur's abdomen while a sword severs her left arm from her body, at the same time two spears of light at sent at her, one misses but the other pierces Astur's right shoulder before dissipating. But Astur gives zero fucks as she takes out a dozen Big Blast Balls and detonates them on top of herself, consuming her and the two melee guards in a large explosion. The blast sends Elizabeth and Kretea a few steps back with worried expressions while the other two guards, who were closer to the blast, take a bit of damage in addition to forcing them a few steps back.

Both sides want to make sure their comrades are safe, but before either side can make a move, two plain-looking long swords get thrown toward the two mage guards. They aren't complete fools and instantly realise something wrong and deploy a magic barrier as the two swords glow slightly as they tremble before exploding, sending shards of metal in all directions. With the brunt of the attack being absorbed by their barriers, the two mages don't suffer much damage. But while to guards had been focused on protecting themselves, Elizabeth and Kretea recognised the two swords and made a move on the two mages as the two women are out of the guard's focus. Catching them off guard, several dark tendrils dig into one of the guards as they quickly become a dried husk, while at the same time several blood-red pikes pierce the body of the other guard. Unlike Kretea, Elizabeth isn't strong enough to instantly kill her target as he lets out a few last words.

"Don't think you can make it out alive," says the guard, drawing his last breath.

Elizabeth and Kretea ignore the dead guards as they immediately turn their attention to the clearing cloud of smoke.

"We know you still alive, but are you alright, Lady Astur? That was too reckless!" Kretea says, running up to the silhouette in the smoke.

Meeting her halfway, Astur steps out from the smoke, with two arms attached to her while holding her recently severed left arm with her left arm. As Elizabeth walks over, she and Kretea look over Astur's body for any injuries, but they're astonished to find that besides the torn and singed clothing, there isn't even a sign of being injured.

Storing her severed arm in her ring, Astur says, "You two worry too much. Right now, I'm basically nothing can cause any lasting damage to me."

"Whatever the case may be, it's my job as your personal guard to worry about you," Kretea says as she lets out a sigh of relief upon seeing that Astur is really without injury.

"Even so, how can someone not worry after seeing their friend perform a suicide attack," Elizabeth says.

"I'll concede that you bring up a good point, but we're wasting time as we stand around and talk about it. Lets finish this quickly and get what we came for," Astur says, leading the group into the underground path.

Running down the long stairwell, it takes a few minutes before Astur and her magnificent sidekicks arrive in a large underground room with a large stone door on the far side of the room. Of course, there are also guards stationed here and given the empty nature of the room, they notice the three intruders instantly. Unlike before, there are only two of them, both spearmen. Compared to before, the strength of these two exceeds that of the previous four guards, but just as before, Astur actually gives zero fucks.

As Astur takes out a pair of Big Blast Balls in each of her hands, her companions step back to take cover as Astur charges forward again, yelling, "ASTUUUUUUR KOJUUUUUIIIIIN!"

Although the two guards haven't seen Big Blast Balls before, they do know of regular Blast Balls. While normal Blast Balls aren't typically a large threat, the two guards are sure that these are anything but normal Blast Balls. But they have a job to do, if they weren't resolved to do it they wouldn't have been stationed here as guards. Moreover, they don't believe that just two of those explosives are enough to take them down.

As Astur draws near the two guards, they pierce both of Astur's shoulders with their spears, but their target just smiles as two dozen more of the Big Blast Balls appear. It was at this moment the two guards realised, they fucked up.

*BOOM!*"

Having used far more Big Blast Balls this time, both the sound and the devastation increased accordingly. But Astur didn't just drop her bundle of explosives randomly but made sure that they were close to the door which she suspected to be the entrance of the crypt. And just as she planned, both the guards and the door were taken out in one fell swoop.

As Elizabeth and Kretea come out from their hiding spot from around the corner, they meet up with Astur in front of the remains of the door.

Watching Astur pull out the spears lodged in her shoulder and seeing the wounds close within seconds, Elizabeth asks, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're supposed to be a backline combatant, right? Having a similar role to a mage in combat, right?"

"Yeah, I'm a backline fighter, is there a problem?" Astur asks, ignoring the obvious hypocrisy between her recent actions and her words.

Unwilling to think about it any further, Elizabeth just drops the subject and says, "Lets keep moving."